Glowork, a website dedicated to women empowerment in the Middle East, said it has signed a deal with EXA Information Systems to create thousands of jobs for women in Saudi Arabia.

EXA is a leading Arab IT company offering a wide range of services including software development, web hosting, and integrated solutions in the Gulf and North Africa region.

According to Glowork, under this agreement signed at the Council of Saudi Chambers, the companies will permit women to work from their homes.

This agreement will permit companies to hire women for jobs such as customer service, sales, research and digital marketing, where a very high tech monitoring and performance system will be put in place and training would be provided to both manager and staff.

A Saudi-led project, Glowork has already created over 2,000 vacancies through its website enabling employees to work from home.

Khalid Alkhudair, the founder of Glowork and mastermind of the idea, believes the current labour laws of segregation have been an obstacle for companies that aim to hire women, and with this agreement it could change the laws of employment.

“Over 80 per cent of the companies we approached that never had a female department were happy to hire females but were phased by the segregation policies which requires their offices to have separate entrances and in turn means more cost on their shoulders.'

'The agreement we signed is a historic breakthrough for Saudi as it will undoubtedly create thousands of jobs for women and save a lot of cost,' he remarked.

'This will also allow opportunity for women in rural areas, and those with special needs or disabilities to work from home as the system does not require both employee and company to be in the same town, city or even country,' he added.

Alkhudair said some companies might have issues in hiring married women mainly due to risk of maternity leave, but this system abolishes that worry and she can continue working from home.

EXA chief executive officer Sami AlHelwa said, “The agreement is not limited to cost saving and creating jobs, but also allows companies to produce more quality work through standard reports generated, high tech performance management system and an interaction framework to the point you feel like your employee is in the next room”-TradeArabia News Service